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Journalist offers view of life in Iraq, Sept. 28

Posted September 20, 2006; 05:39 p.m.

by Eric Quiñones

Washington Post journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran will present a talk on "The Emerald City: A Discussion of Life Inside America's Occupation Headquarters in Iraq" at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 28, in 16 Robertson Hall.

Chandrasekaran, assistant managing editor of the Post and its former bureau chief in Iraq, is the author of a new book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone." The book explores Baghdad's Green Zone, a walled-off "little America" of towering plants, villas, stocked bars, a mall and swimming pools that housed U.S. officials responsible for engineering Iraq's postwar reconstruction. Chandrasekaran gives a firsthand account of the American occupation in Iraq and how officials "routinely ignored the reality of local conditions until, as one ex-staffer puts it, 'everything blew up in our faces.'"

Before being named the Post's assistant managing editor, Chandrasekaran served as bureau chief in Baghdad, Cairo and Southeast Asia and as a correspondent covering the war in Afghanistan. Chandrasekaran became the newspaper's Middle East correspondent in 2002 and moved to Baghdad on the eve of the U.S. invasion in March 2003.